Friday, September 27, 2013

A Policeman's Recollection of Nablus

We dealt mainly with minor contraventions of municipal ordinances but
stabbings were frequent and family feuds known as fasad would quite
often erupt. These were long-standing vendettas whereby a member of one
family would kill a member of another family, because that family had
previously killed a member of his family. Apparently, this family
obligation extended to the fifth degree of consanguinity. These murders
were easy to solve as the blood-stained, curved-bladed daggers
invariably used were generally recovered, and the identity of the
assailant was not concealed by either family. To avoid a prison
sentence, the murderer would often flee to another village, and his name
would then be added to our list of "absconded offenders".

Nablus was on the route through which hashish was brought by camel down
from Syria and we would quite often seize slabs of it wrapped in sacks
slung over the backs of camels. There was also the possibility of
firearms being brought along this route, so road blocks would be set up
at random, and we developed this into a fine art. A location would be
chosen beyond a bend in the road; two or three "knife-rests" interwoven
with coils of barbed wire were placed across the road to form an "S"
through which vehicles had to manoeuvre. The police vehicle would be
concealed facing outwards to deal with any vehicle that crashed through;
and the site was overlooked from a concealed armed position above. The
roadblock could be set up in minutes and rapidly moved to another
location... Nablus was a fervent Moslem stronghold and, in accordance with strict
Moslem tradition, the women dressed in black robes and veils when in the
town. These robes were not floor-length chadors, and some of the
younger ladies wore stylish shoes and transparent silk veils revealing
well made-up faces. The Bedouin women were completely covered but many
had elaborate facial tattoos and strings of gold coins dangling across
their faces as a sign of wealth....

...Once the U.N. resolution was adopted the situation in Nablus began to
deteriorate. At the beginning of 1948, a group of well-known bandits
cum-soldiers of fortune from Lebanon, headed by Fawzi Kawakji, was
reported in the area, and the locals began to carry rifles openly in
public. The crackle of rifle fire could be heard frequently at night,
but at this stage no one was being shot at and the firing was purely the
customary morale-boosting exercise. There were no British troops at all
in Samaria and the only soldiers we had ever seen were a few members of
the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force in their red and white checked kafiyas
(known locally as hatta wa egal) who would occasionally come across the
Allenby Bridge from Trans-Jordan some 30 kilometres away.

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.